Well, if you've made it this far, you are probably still interested, and would really like to get started with your own rules. So, in the interest of not leaving you disappointed, I'll walk you through a few rules that would work with the example site and it's structure. (Make sure you read the whole page before you go and 'try' anything, there are some important tips at the bottom.)

In the first example we will pretend my htaccess is in the main folder of the example site. The structure looks like this:

For this example assume I have moved the pages from the folder 'more-pages' to the folder 'pages', and my goal is to redirect everyone who tries to visit the folder 'more-pages' to the correct page in the folder 'pages' and I want to let them know I am doing it.

(In short if you ask for either of the pages in 'more-pages' I am going to redirect you to the same file in 'pages')

The new structure looks like this:
www.yoursite.com has a total of five items:
1. index.html2. information-1.html3. pages (this is a sub-folder)
4. more-pages (this is also a sub-folder)
5. htaccess

The sub-folder 'pages' has a total of four items:
1. information-2.html2. information-3.html3. information-4.html4. information-5.html

The sub-folder 'more-pages' has a total of 0 items.

The address, or URL of the pages this rule will work for, looks like this in a browser:

The above rule will work for both of the pages I moved, but it would not work for the page below, because with out the '-' the page does not match the pattern I specified.

http://www.yoursite.com/more-pages/information4.html

In the second example, I will do the same thing from within the 'more-pages' folder, please note what changes, and what does not change with the rule.

My new structure looks like this:
www.yoursite.com has a total of four items:
1. index.html2. information-1.html3. pages (this is a sub-folder)
4. more-pages (this is also a sub-folder)

The sub-folder 'pages' has a total of four items:
1. information-2.html2. information-3.html3. information-4.html4. information-5.htm

The sub-folder 'more-pages' has a total of 1 item.
1. htaccess

The rule for rewriting the sub-folder is similar, but slightly different.

RewriteRule ^([a-z]+)-([0-9])\.html$ /pages/$1-$2.html [R=301,L]

The main difference is I have had to remove the 'more-pages/' portion from the left side of the rule. This is because I am already in the 'more-pages' folder, so I have to start the rule from there.

The right side of the rule stays exactly the same, because after the rewrite takes place the request is sent back and reprocessed, and if '/pages' is not inlcuded, the server will look for 'http://www.yoursite.com/information-4.html' (or 5.html), which does not exist.

Some final things to check before you begin URL rewriting: (If you do not know how to do any of these, or do not have access, you may have to check with your hosting company.)

1. Make sure your server is configured to AllowOverride FileInfo, or All, not None.
2. Make sure you have Options +FollowSymLinks
3. Make sure every htaccess file you use contains RewriteEngine on

Now that you have a base for mod-rewrite URL redirection, and should be able to at least have some idea of what a rule is doing - Have Fun, and please keep in mind you have only just scratched the surface of the power and application of mod-rewrite.